The Stranger - Part 3

The police were satisfied that there was nothing suspicious about Jimmy Dupre’s sudden demise. The coroner's report concluded that he did in fact take his own life with a cocktail of drugs, some of which were unknown. What were they? Where did he get them? The experts were baffled.

But Candice, his wife of ten happy years, needed to understand why it happened. What led to it and why she had never spotted something was wrong. Surely something was very wrong.

She spent hours sitting with his list of chosen funeral music in her hand. Would these titles give any clue as why he decided to leave her and the kids? She played them over and over in her head. She wrote down the words, but nothing jumped off the page. Some songs were his old favourites. Another - You are so Beautiful - was the song they danced to at their wedding. She closed her eyes and drifted back to that moment when he took her in his arms. The moment when the clapping cheering crowd seemed to fade away as they turned and turned on the dance floor in their own private heaven.

'You’re everything I hoped for, everything I need. You are so beautiful to me'

Tears fell on the sheet of paper which she held in her trembling hand. But then her tear-filled eyes were drawn the final piece of music on the list. She suddenly went cold. A vision of a black bird in a tree flashed into her mind. She saw again a glossy black bird flying in slow motion up, up and up into the sky.

She stumbled to the CD rack and searched for the disc. Where was it? She grabbed handfuls of records and threw them this way and that. It must be here. It must. Then she found it. She pushed and shoved the disc until she finally managed to locate the slot in the player. She pressed play.

'Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise'

Had he come back as a winged guardian? ‘Don’t be stupid! That only happens in the movies. Had he sent it from beyond the grave. ‘Get a grip of yourself.’ She broke into a sweat. ’It’s a sign. It is a sign‘. Everything around her was spinning.

'Black bird fly

Black bird fly

Into the light of the dark black sky'

Click here for Part 4